BlackBerry beats iPhone to the top of Smartphone Ranking
According to a survey report published by The NPD Group which is a leader in wireless industry market research, RIM’s BlackBerry Curve has moved past Apple’s iPhone to become the best-selling consumer smartphone in the U.S. in the first quarter (Q1) of 2009. This achievement was immensely helped by an aggressive “buy-one-get-one” promotion by Verizon Wireless. The iPhone 3G came in second, followed by the BlackBerry Storm, BlackBerry Pearl, and the T-Mobile G1.
RIM’s consumer smartphone market share increased 15 percent to nearly 50 percent of the smartphone market in Q1 2009 versus the prior quarter, as Apple’s and Palm’s share both declined 10 percent each. According to Ross Rubin, director of industry analysis at The NPD Group, “Verizon Wireless’s aggressive marketing of the BlackBerry Storm and its buy-one-get-one BlackBerry promotion to its large customer base contributed to RIM capturing three of the top five positions”.
He also noted that “The more familiar, and less expensive, Curve benefited from these giveaways and was able to leapfrog the iPhone, due to its broader availability on the four major U.S. national carriers.”
To add to this, the Smartphones market which represented just 17 percent of handset sales volume in Q1 2008, now make up 23 percent of sales which means that consumers are now migrating toward Web-capable Smartphone handsets and their supporting data plans to access more information and entertainment on the go.
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